such illustrations in guiding his views of the order of the natural world. Events apparently anomalous, and seeming like absolute interruptions of uniformity, may be only so because we have not attained a sufficiently extended view of the entire system to which they really are united as essential and harmonious parts.

And such considerations become of more special importance in reference to those sublime conclusions of natural theology to which we have just before referred. Those who admit them in general may not be prepared to perceive the full extent to which they hold good. Yet the consideration of apparent exceptions and seeming contradictions, and suggestions, by which to resolve the difficulties, are surely most important for vindicating our belief in an eternal Providence.

Examples:-Gravitation.

LET us take as an example the system of universal gravitation. Newton, by establishing the observance of unvarying laws throughout the solar system as the necessary results of one grand principle, in fact established the only evidence we can attain of the Divine Intelligence ordaining and maintaining that system; the unaltered preservation of such laws, once imposed, being the secondary means in which alone we can recognise the operation of Divine power. Prior to these discoveries we might have

imagined immediate arbitrary intervention in every motion of the planetary bodies. And in any department of physical inquiry the same remark would apply. In the one case we might imagine such agency, but we could have no rational proof of it; in the other alone do we arrive at the sole means of proof of which our limited powers are capable.

Such has ever been the progress of physical science in all its departments; from confusion to order; from arbitrary influence to systematic arrangement; from capricious agency to overruling intelligence.

These remarks will prepare the reader to take in its correct sense an observation of Laplace, which has been much dwelt upon, and, as I think, unhappily misunderstood; owing, in no small degree, to that ambiguity which we before noticed in the use of the words "final cause;" and which, in the sentence about to be quoted, are obviously employed as equi-. valent to the words "direct intervention."

"Let us," says Laplace, "run over the history of the progress of the human mind and its errors; we shall perpetually see 'final causes' pushed away to the bounds of its knowledge. These causes, which Newton removed to the limits of the solar system, were not long ago conceived to obtain in the atmosphere, and employed in explaining meteors; they are, therefore, in the eyes of the philosopher nothing more than the expression of the ignorance in which we are of the real causes."

After what has been said, it will be superfluous to

offer further comment on this passage, the tendency of which, when rightly understood, is manifestly so far from hostile to the true doctrine of final causes, that it points directly to those profoundly adjusted arrangements which constitute the very soundest proofs of Divine Intelligence pervading the system of the universe.

Perturbations:-Stability of the System.

NEWTON developed in the most complete and satisfactory manner all the grander features of the system of universal gravitation. To that great principle, simple indeed in its law, but wholly mysterious in its nature and mode of operation, he successfully referred all the more palpable and conspicuous motions of the heavenly bodies. Here was, in truth, a physical cause of the most universal efficiency, but one which he was peculiarly careful to insist on, in the sole sense of an universal fact or law;—the tendency of all matter to fall together with a force proportional directly to the mass and inversely to the square of the distance. To this physical cause, then, he was able to trace all the greater phenomena of the solar system.

But it was confessedly the fact that there existed some slight irregularities in the motions of the planets; and it was even a consequence of gravitation that they must act one on another, in a very complicated manner, in consequence of their perpe

tually varying relative positions, and thus disturb the perfect regularity of each other's motion. The investigation of those perturbations was not followed up by Newton. He was aware of their existence, and that they were but small in amount, and always allowed for them in speaking of the exactness with which the law of elliptic orbits prevails. He conceived, however, that these "inconsiderable irregularities which may have arisen from the mutual actions of comets and planets upon one another, will be apt to increase, till this system wants a reformation*"

This remark occurs in a passage where he is expressly speaking of the order and harmony of the system as an indication of design. He had also before said, that "the main business of natural philosophy is to deduce causes from effects till we come to the very first cause, which certainly is not mechanicalt." And again, that from observing the order of the visible world, and so inferring creative intelligence, "it is unphilosophical to seek for any other origin of the world, or to pretend that it might arise out of a chaos by the mere laws of nature; though being once formed it may continue by those laws for many ages."

The observation first quoted has, in conjunction with these last, been viewed as expressing Newton's belief that the adjustments of the planetary system

*

Opticks, Query 31, p. 378, 3d edit. † p. 344. p. 378.

M

would need renewal from time to time by the immediate interposition of Divine power. And this was looked upon by many as one of the most valuable inferences from the Newtonian system. From a reference to the passage, it will be seen at once that Newton does not himself expressly make the inference; nor, when carefully considered, is it one of any peculiar importance or force. It is difficult to see in what way (if correct,) it could add to the evidence of design afforded in such overwhelming abundance by the existing order of the system.

Newton left all the irregularities, or perturbations (as they are called,) to be investigated by his successors. The most distinguished mathematicians since his time have been occupied in developing and simplifying these intricate but highly interesting questions. Lagrange and Laplace have been pre-eminently distinguished in this research; and to the profound analysis, especially, of the latter, we owe the establishment of the great principle, that all the variations which can arise from the mutual actions of the planets are limited by certain periods within which they must perpetually recur. This has been called "the stability of the planetary system."

"It is not, therefore," says Baron Fourier, in his Eloge of Laplace, "left, as Newton himself and Euler had conjectured, to an adventitious force to repair or prevent the disturbances which time may have caused. It is the law of gravitation itself which regulates all things, which is sufficient for all things,